Sometimes you want an open floor plan at work, and sometimes you don’t. MIT and Google are making a future where you can have both—without needing to move.
Martin Hislop writes for designboom:
“Open office plans have been shown to decrease productivity due to noise and privacy challenges yet they can provide flexibility and develop collaborative opportunities. Fixed offices offer privacy and quiet environments, yet restrict the type of working spaces available and occupy more square footage. This research undertaken by MIT proposes an alternative whereby structures can easily transform between private phone booths, lounge spaces or other quiet meeting spaces into open flexible areas. By utilizing woven and transformable materials these meeting spaces can expand and contract to create a wooden, cocoon-like meeting room for six to eight people, or morph into the ceiling leaving a clear and open area below.”
Watch a video of the cocoon in action below. To read more about the collaboration creating this cocoon in designboom, click here.
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